Sonifi Solutions, Inc.

About Sonifi Solutions, Inc.

When it rains on your beach vacation, you can at least take in a movie thanks to SONIFI Solutions. The company (formerly LodgeNet Interactive) offers free and fee-based guest services, including DIRECTV, on-demand movies, and Internet access to about 1.5 million upscale hotel rooms in the US and Canada. For those laid up in a hospital bed, its SONIFI Healthcare division provides entertainment as well as interactive and educational content to patients in about 80 hospitals in the US. After filing for bankruptcy in early 2013, SONIFI Solutions was taken private by Colony Capital.

Change in Company Type

As LodgeNet, the company had faced dwindling sales for the past five years. It was unable to pay vendors such as DIRECTV and HBO and finally reorganized under Chapter 11 in 2013. Colony Capital agreed to provide $60 million in capital and restructured SONIFI's debt. Fittingly, Colony Capital already had other hotels in its investment portfolio.

Geographic Reach

SONIFI has four US offices, two in California and one each in Atlanta and Sioux Falls, South Dakota. While it has international offices in Canada and Mexico, as SONIFI, the company is focused on the US market.

Strategy

As a private company, SONIFI Solutions whittled its TV offerings to an exclusive relationship with DIRECTV. It also allows hotels more control over their media offerings and more opportunities for hotel branding, as well as delivering services on both TV and mobile applications. In addition, the company axed its proprietary technology platform to an open, common platform to make for an easier development and deployment.